The current Colorado Music Festival season's most anticipated week, five concerts featuring prominent Russian and Soviet composers, begins tonight at Chautauqua Auditorium. This will be the last of outgoing music director Michael Christie's mini-festivals, annual events that have become his most indelible signature.

The "Russian Masters" concept had its genesis two years ago, when Christie conducted all four of Sergei Rachmaninoff's monumental piano concertos -- plus the composer's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini," really, the fifth concerto -- over the course of a season at the Phoenix Symphony. Russian pianist Olga Kern, the dynamic winner of the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, was the soloist in all five works.

It was in 2011 that Kern began doing marathon Rachmaninoff festivals across the country, Christie said. When the conductor suggested something similar to anchor a potential week of Russian music in Boulder, the pianist expressed excitement but asked if she could do them all together on two concerts.

"Originally, I wanted to do one Rachmaninoff piece on each concert," Christie said, "but Olga told me that it would be easier both physically and mentally to do them in the shortest possible time frame." He said he has not seen a pianist accomplish such a feat, but he has every confidence Kern knows how to pull it off.

The composer's orchestral writing is also demanding, but the second and third concertos are staples of the repertoire, as is the "Paganini Rhapsody."

"We'll spend most of our rehearsal time on the First and Fourth," Christie said. "The Fourth is probably the least known. It's really cool and jazzy, with three sleek and concise movements, and audiences will love it."

Kern has had a long association with Rachmaninoff.

In a statement, she noted that her great-grandmother, a singer, was performing a recital of Rachmaninoff songs in Kazan when her pianist fell ill. Rachmaninoff happened to be passing through the city and stepped in to accompany her. Kern said her family still has the program from the concert. This year marks the 140th anniversary of Rachmaninoff's birth and the 70th anniversary of his death.

Kern plays the First and Third Concertos on Friday, following with the Second, Fourth and the "Rhapsody" on July 21.

Violinist Lara St. John will be making her first appearance in Colorado.
(Courtesy photo)

The centerpiece of the first two Russian concerts will be violinist Lara St. John. The engaging Canadian virtuoso opens the mini-festival tonight with Aram Khachaturian's blockbuster 1940 concerto. The physically demanding piece by the Soviet-Armenian composer has long been in St. John's repertoire.

The violinist spoke about her experiences as an exchange student in the former Soviet Union.

"It was very strange to travel there in 1988, when the Cold War was still going strong," St. John said. "It was the calm before the storm and a fantastic year to be there. I actually went to Armenia, where Khachaturian was from, met the people and heard the folk music," which, she added, made it into the concerto.

This will be her first appearance in Colorado. In addition to tonight's concert, she plays Tuesday in the second festival chamber concert at eTown Hall. St. John will join CMF musicians in Tchaikovsky's string sextet "Souvenir de Florence" and two movements from Rachmaninoff's "Trio elegiaque" No. 2.

For Thursday's concert, right before Kern's appearance, Christie turns to one of the most popular Russian symphonies, Tchaikovsky's Sixth, known as the "Pathetique," a piece he has not previously performed at the CMF.

He talked about some insights he gained while studying the piece as a "homosexual tragedy." The composer's passionate relationship with his nephew was the impetus for the work, which ended up being his last completed piece.

"I think the narrative is so clear," Christie said. "The third movement, which can easily be seen as bombastic and militaristic, gains a whole new perspective if it is viewed as a 19th-century pride march.

"The tenderness of the melodies in the first movement, the off-kilter dance in the second, the resignation of the finale, it all makes sense with that in mind. Without it, there is no character, and it's just another ultra-romantic symphony."

Christie precedes the symphony with Prokofiev's ever-popular "Peter and the Wolf."

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